CLASSICAL MUSIC IN BRITAIN

Classical music is big in Britain. Every evening in London there is a huge choice of concerts to go to. There are many full-time professional orchestras, and hundreds of amateur ones including the National Youth Orchestra. Most secondary schools have their own orchestras. There are two dedicated classical radio stations - BBC Radio 3 and the much newer Classic FM. The sales of classical CDs are enormous, sometimes rivalling pop sales; the young violinist Nigel Kennedy's recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons sold more than one million copies.

But in spite of all this, the history of British classical music is very uneven. It started well, and is thriving today, but in between it went through a long, unsuccessful period. Medieval churches had highly-trained choirs which were part of the European Catholic tradition, and after King Henry VIII broke away from Rome, lots of new choral music was written in English. Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons are great names from this period. Henry VIII also sang, played the keyboard and composed; he is said to have written the very popular song Greensleeves, still played today by ice-cream vans and telephone waiting systems. Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I, also loved music, and so the royal palace encouraged a thriving musical culture. At the same time as the flowering of drama with Shakespeare and his contemporaries, there was a fabulous Golden Age of English keyboard and lute music and song. John Dowland, Thomas Morley and John Bull wrote exquisite material, which is not just of historical interest - it is really worth listening to. This wonderful period came to an end in the 1620s. However, the close of the same century produced the man generally considered to be Britain's greatest composer- Henry Purcell. He wrote choral and instrumental works, many of them for the church and for King Charles II, but one of his best-loved works was composed for Chelsea Girls' School - the first English opera, Dido and Aeneas.

Purcell died in 1695, only 36 years old, and so began a 200 year gap in British musical creativity. The next home-grown composer of international status was to be Edward Elgar, whose music flourished at the beginning of the 20th century. A 200 year gap is bad enough, but consider what was happening in the rest of Europe during that time: Britain managed to miss out on the whole of the high baroque, classical and romantic periods of Western music. No wonder his compatriots were so delighted with Elgar (1857-1934). He had absorbed the new harmonies of Liszt and Wagner, but in an indefinable way he succeeded in evoking his native landscape near the Welsh border and the rather nostalgic mood in England at the lime. Among his loveliest pieces the cello concerto, the violin concerto and the songs called Sea Pictures.

The musical scene in Britain, which had seemed so dead, now burst into life. Elgar had several notable younger contemporaries: Delius, Vaughan Williams and Hoist. They were followed by William Walton, who composed some great film music, and several important women composers - Elizabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy and Thea Musgrave

There was a flowering of opera in the hands of Michael Tippett and the biggest British star of 20th century classical music, Benjamin Britten. Having missed the 19th century, when Italy and Germany were producing a great number of operas, Britain made quite a good attempt to catch up.

Of course, it is rather inappropriate to talk about classical music in nationalistic terms; more than perhaps any other art form, it is international. British musicians work all over the world, and the music scene in Britain is, and always has been, full of foreign talent. Handel has not so far been mentioned; he did not strictly fit the criteria, since he was German by birth. But he settled in England in 1712 at the age of 27, became a British subject, wrote a large number of works (such as Messiah) in English, and has been Britain's favourite composer ever since; the British long ago gave up writing his name in the correct way, Haendel, or pronouncing it accordingly. One of J. S. Bach's many sons, J.C. Bach came to live in London in 1762 and became known as the English Bach. The Italian Luigi Cherubini became court composer to King George III. In the 20th century, the Spanish composer Roberto Gerhard settled in England and is thought of as, British. Many great instrumental players and conductors have lived or worked in Britain: Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich, the Amadeus Quartet, Yo Yo Ma, Mitsuko Uchida, Otto Klemperer and Georg Solti.

Attitudes to classical music are strangely contradictory. Many young people learn to play instruments like the piano, the violin or the flute at school. This is nearly always in a classical context; they learn to read music and play in the orchestra, with teachers who are essentially classical musicians. But the same 16-year-old boy who studies the cello every week, and practises Brahms for the school concert, comes home and listens to Oasis and Radiohead. With his friends he talks about guitar riffs and drum machines, and has strong ideas about the quality of the DJs in the local dance clubs.

He likes Puccini, but he does not buy La boheme on CD; he buys Blur.

Pop and classical seem to exist in completely different worlds, with only occasional and rather embarrassed contact. You will never hear a classical piece played on a pop radio station, or vice versa. Hardly any musicians actually manage to sing or play in both styles. The divide is a subject of jokes: when Beatle Ringo Starr was asked what he thought of Beethoven, he said: "I love him, especially his poems.''

Actually there is one area of crossover, the musical: in the Andrew Lloyd Webber-type stage shows, such as Cats, Starlight Express or The Lion King, easy-listening pop songs are accompanied by a classical orchestra. But it is interesting that both serious classical musicians and serious pop fans despise the musical: it is too anodyne, too middle-of-the-road.

As with so many aspects of life in Britain, social class comes into the question of musical tastes. If you mingle with the crowd coming out of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, you will see (and hear, if you are sensitive to accents) that they are middle class. Pop musicians, on the other hand, are expected to be working-class heroes. Mick Jagger came from a middle-class background, but does not like to admit it; so he tries to speak with a cockney accent and sing with an American one.

Of course, talented musicians see past the class stereotypes, and are able to appreciate what is good, whether it is pop, classical, jazz or world music. It seems that the less musical you are, the more partisan you become. Tone-deaf middle-class people support classical as though it were a football team, and dismiss pop as rubbish and noise; unmusical working-class people treat classical as though it were purely an expression of snobbery.